Adventure Magazine Cover — page 163: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Fox’s Earth the station, Algy felt as though he were about to step off the edge of the world into a limitless abyss. He had not apprised his uncle of his in- tended visit and was therefore immensely relieved to find that he could get a lift in a farmer’s cart to within a couple of miles of the lodge gates of Carter Fell Castle. It was a bitter night, and as the chill hours passed he felt his enthusiasm fading and dwindling away as he grew colder and colder. It was a three hours’ drive from the station to the castle, and he found himself wishing vainly that he had not been in such a hurry, but had taken the thing more slowly and come north in his car. He was positively glad when the moment came to alight, and he commenced the long walk to the castle with a feeling of thankful- ness that at last he would be able to revive the circulation in his frozen veins and regain a semblance of life in his leaden feet. Yet, at the same time, it was with a distinct sense of dismay that he said good-night to the farmer and heard him drive away, urging his horses through the heavy, rutted mud, and he stood still for a moment watching, till finally the curtain of mist and rain blotted them from his view. ‘‘At least he was company—some one to speak to!”? muttered Brett dismally as the farmer’s tuneless whistle sounded down the wind. ‘I wish I’d not been in such a hurry to leave London. It would have been better to have waited and told old Schles- inger my plans and asked for some one to accompany me. I shall wire for some one from the Yard the first thing in the morning. I don’t hope for the luck to find the cove and be present at his August Majesty Maxi- milian’s interview with Ostermann at mid- night to-night; but the secret will still be there, I suppose. If I locate the place by this time to-morrow it will be as much as I can do, and by this time to-morrow I’ll take care to have a couple of the biggest fellows from the Yard to back me up. My stars, what a country! Not fit for beasts in this weather!” It was almost an hour later when he sighted the towering bulk of the castle rising densely against the sky, its numerous towers and thick buttresses protruding grotesquely into the ebony night. Late though it was, a thin strip of light glimmered faintly through the narrow slit of window beside the solid, inhospitable-looking, fast-closed 919 door. It was unlike his uncle to keep such— for that part of the world—late hours. Algy had counted upon having to rouse old Jacobs to admit him and get him supper. The old servant always slept in a little room to the right of the hall-door, and Algy had been about to make for that window when he espied the light shining through the hall. Observing mentally that his uncle must have become giddy in his old age, Algy rang the bell and waited expectantly. Nothing happened. He rang again, the bell sounding like an army of clangorous demons shrieking through the stillness of the night. Still nothing happened and he rang a third time. It seemed an age before he heard a movement on the other side of the door, and he rapped impatiently with his knuckles. Then the noise of heavy chains being removed came to him, and finally the great door opened slowly and as though reluctantly, and a thin, yellow, wrinkled face peered through the narrow space. It was his'uncle himself, but so cadaverous, so aged, so hideous with the weight of years, so changed from the hale and hearty man he had known in his boy- hood that Algy could scarce repress a cry of astonishment. “Uncle!” he cried, thrusting out his hand and stepping forward as though to enter. “Uncle, don’t you remember me—Algy?”’ The old man’s foot shuffled against Algy’s intruding one as though he would force him to retire, and his little eyes, enveloped in a roll of wrinkles, glared maliciously upat him. ‘““What do you want? Where have you come from, eh? You can’t come in at this time of night!” : He made as though to shut the door, but Algy forced it wider open and stepped in- side, patting his uncle affectionately on the arm as he did so. “Why, Uncle Stephen, you wouldn’t turn your own nephew out into that awful night again, would your Come, come, Uncle! Why, I don’t believe you remembered me for a moment, did you?”’ ‘““No, no—that’s it! I did not remember you, boy! You see, I was expecting some one else—not you at all—at least, I was expecting some one else in the morning, not to-night. You frightened me—ringing at the bell like that. Yes, that’s it—I wasn’t expecting my friend till the morning, and you frightened me. You must not heed an old man’s tantrums, Algy. Come into the COmiclbook r CO